


Amortentia

by JGoose13



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Auror Ben Solo, Auror Rey - Freeform, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Harry Potter AU, Literal explosive first meeting, Love Magic, My first attempt at HP AU, No actual drinking of Amortentia potion, Smut isn't too graphic though I rated it E just in case, Soulmates, Which isn't much like me because the more graphic the better, Writing Den Summer Theme Event
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:07:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24878194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JGoose13/pseuds/JGoose13
Summary: Harry Potter Lexicon: "Amortentia is the most powerful love potion in the world. It is recognizable by its distinctive mother-of-pearl sheen and by the fact that its steam rises in characteristic spirals. The potion smells differently to different people according to what attracts them."In which Rey finally finds the source and explanation of the scents she smells when near an Amortentia potion.Written for the Writing Den's Summer Reylo theme event: Force Bond/Connection.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 12
Kudos: 185
Collections: Reylo Theme Event Summer





	Amortentia

**Author's Note:**

> This is my take on the theme of "Force Bond/Connection."
> 
> Shoutout to [Fandom Focused Creations](https://www.etsy.com/shop/fandomfocused) for the inspiration of Ben's scents.
> 
> I would like to give a huge thanks to [LadyofReylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyofReylo) for beta-ing!

The heavy warmth of Ben’s body gingerly covered Rey’s as he climbed on the bed, settling himself between her spread thighs. Those full, warm lips of his immediately latched onto her neck, nipping and licking along the cord of muscle. Rey wrapped her arms around Ben’s wide shoulders, pulling him closer against her. As he worked his wicked tongue against her skin, Rey buried her nose against the crook of Ben’s neck, where it met his shoulder. Inhaling deeply, Rey sighed, only to take in another fortifying breath of the scent she’d come to know and love.

In these moments, locked in an intimate embrace, Rey would recall a day during sixth year when she and the rest of her classmates had entered the dungeons to be met with something quite different than normal… 

~*~

Since first year, she wouldn’t have considered the smells of the potions classroom to be pleasant. Some days, the odor was down right putrid. Most days, the underlying stench was tolerable. That day, however…

… well, that day Rey had smelled the most aromatically arousing scent she’d ever experienced.

Freshly laundered cotton. Cedar. Plums. Rain. 

The smells had mixed and separated, swirling around her head, making her lightheaded and giddy. 

“Amortentia…” Professor Mothma had said. “… is the world’s most powerful love potion. It’s scent differs from person to person, based on what attracts you the most. We will not be making it, but as potential aurors, it is important you recognize it and neutralize it. It is a dangerous potion, one you might encounter…” 

As Professor Mothma droned on, Rey had peered into the cauldron set up in the center of the room, entranced by the smooth liquid with a mother-of-pearl color. The steam emanating from the liquid had spiraled in the air in a way that had almost made teenage Rey giggle aloud.

Love had never been an emotion on Rey’s radar. She had been raised in the muggle foster care system until Headmaster Kenobi collected her upon her eleventh birthday. That had been the day she felt liberated, free of the horrors of neglect and abuse. 

It was a foreign idea… _love_. 

Rey had no idea what it was to love. Had no idea what it felt to _receive_ love. So, to smell those scents of the Amortentia potion that day had been wishful thinking, a pipe dream. How could she know what -- or who -- attracted her, when she didn’t feel attracted to anyone at Hogwarts?

It wasn’t until eight years later, now a junior auror at the Ministry of Magic, that Rey smelled those scents again. 

Freshly laundered cotton. Cedar. Plums. Rain.

It had caused Rey to stop in her tracks, a harried wizard from the Department of Mysteries nearly ramming into her coming off of a lift. 

In eight years, she hadn’t smelled those scents simultaneously, as she had during the Amortentia lesson. 

Now she did. 

The smells had fused and separated and fused again, causing Rey to sway where she stood.

Blinking against the sudden euphoria, Rey had pulled herself from her stupor and frantically looked around the main atrium of the Ministry, desperately seeking a source. She might as well have been looking for a needle in a haystack for all the good it did her. After a few minutes of searching, getting eyed warily by other Ministry workers, Rey had continued on to another lift that would take her up to the Magical Law Enforcement Offices. 

Once Rey stepped through the door, the smells had returned, stronger, permeating the air around her, filling her nostrils and causing her eyelids to flutter closed with a small satisfied sound muffled behind closed lips. 

“Oh, good, Niima, you’re here. My office, _now_ …” Her boss, Gial Ackbar, had barked. Rey had beat feet into his office, to find the scents positively overwhelming in the room. 

That’s the day she met Ben Solo.

An American Auror from the United States, Rey had never once met Ben Solo before that moment. How could she have known what he smelled like? Let alone have known it would be attractive to her? A heady mixture of all of those scents she’d smelled emanating from the Amortentia all those years ago. 

_What did it mean?_

Ben had been assigned to the Ministry as part of a new initiative between the Magical Congress of the United States and the Ministry of Magic. It was meant to be a good will mission to show cooperation across magical borders. As Rey would later discover, Ben had been roped into this program because of his mother… the _president_ of MACUSA.

The moment she had stepped into Ackbar’s office and locked eyes with the light, whiskey brown gaze of Ben Solo, Rey fell, metaphorically, of course, and would continue to fall for weeks after. 

The man was not classically handsome. His features, separate, were awkward at best: a large nose, large ears, full lips, pointed chin, a scar slashed across his eye he’d no doubt received in the line of duty, too-tall body, broad shoulders, powerful legs.

But combine them together? To Rey, Ben Solo was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. The attraction was instant, scarily so, and perpetually after, Rey’s heart would hammer wildly in his presence.

The first time he had opened his mouth to speak, Rey might as well have dissolved into a puddle right there on the floor of her boss’ office. It was rich, a deep baritone, and it reverberated through Rey’s body like a siren song. 

His big body had been covered in a well-tailored, sharp, three-piece suit, with the sleeves of the dress shirt rolled up to his elbows. No man had ever looked as _good_ as Ben Solo did that day, and really, every day after that.

When Ackbar had introduced them, Ben Solo had reached out his hand for Rey to shake. She almost hadn’t wanted to, afraid what sort of alchemical reaction would occur when they touched skin. Because there was no way he wasn’t feeling what she was feeling? _Right?_

Their palms had touched, and the reaction was instant. A catalyst for the raging storm that still resided inside of her mind, her body, today. It had been as though flood gates had opened, a roaring current of emotions, thoughts, and dreams had poured into her. The near violence of it had knocked her back, skin-to-skin contact broke instantly, as Rey crumpled to the floor in a heap of surprise. 

Ackbar had been beside himself, calling for a healer, but Rey had been… okay. In fact, emotionally, physically, mentally she had felt the best, the lightest, she had in _years_. 

The gates of her mind had slammed shut again, but what had gotten through and remained buzzed like bees in her ears. Whatever it was, it was something ancient. Rey could feel the archaic magic, how it permeated her very being, her very soul. And one look at Ben Solo had confirmed to Rey that he had experienced the same reactions.

For weeks, after the incident, Rey and Ben had opted to ignore their explosive first meeting. Instead, they did as Ackbar commanded: Rey, Ackbar’s most promising up and coming auror, would act as babysitter for Ben throughout his stay at the Ministry, showing him the ropes of what it meant to be a Ministry Auror. 

‘Babysitter’ had been Rey’s word, not Ackbar’s, and it damn sure felt like exactly as it sounded. 

Ben Solo had been aloof and damn near verbally hostile to her after their handshake. He’d never let her get close enough for them to touch, and neither of them wanted to acknowledge the earth-shattering fact that they weren’t alone in their own head anymore. 

For the first month, it began as a low hum. Trickles of emotions that weren’t Rey’s. She’d feel an overwhelming sense of sadness while at the Leaky Cauldron with some friends, already two butterbeers in, moments before having felt elated and floating on air. There were also the moments when she couldn’t differentiate between what her lack of self-worth and a darker lack of self-worth she couldn’t recognize. 

It came to a head halfway through the second month of Ben Solo’s residency. 

An informant had told them of a possible cache of dark artifacts being smuggled over the border from Wales and into England. Ackbar sent Rey and Ben to attempt an intercept. The shit hit the fan quickly when the perpetrators figured out Aurors were there (Rey will go to her grave arguing it was Ben’s fault for vexing her into the loud argument that gave away their position), and it devolved into a firefight. Ben hadn’t seen action since he arrived, so Rey had never seen him duel. 

Beyond immediate comprehension, Rey and Ben worked in tandem, as if they were one entity, blocking hexes and curses and shooting defensive and offensive spells right back. It was all seamless, as though they’d fought side by side for years, rather than weeks. 

At one point in the fray, Rey had gotten distracted, enough to let her guard down and expose her back. 

_REY!_

Ben had shouted, running for her, his body colliding with hers like a freight train, and they fell to the ground. He’d taken the brunt of the hex, and as Ben lay immobile and near unresponsive, Rey quickly dispatched and detained the dark wizards. 

It wasn’t until later, when Ben was being treated at St. Mungo’s, that Rey realized his warning had been shouted in her head. Her skull still rang like a bell with the sheer volume and dread behind it.

A few days later, as Rey supported Ben out of St. Mungo’s, she knew they needed to have a heart-to-heart. And as much as she could feel his reluctance, he knew they needed one too. 

They’d gotten a bite to eat, talked at length about what in the hell had happened, from the first time their hands touched to that moment, in the restaurant in Diagon Alley. Neither of them could recall anything from their studies or experience in the field that would explain how they could _feel_ each other without physical touch. And how Rey had heard Ben yelling her name across their-- well, bond, for lack of a better term. 

It didn’t take long to realize that they had a lot in common, more than either of them had imagined. They had both felt crushing loneliness growing up, Ben with nearly absent parents, and Rey with, well, none. They both supported the Falmouth Falcons quidditch team out of Cornwall because of their rough and tumble way of play, though Ben particularly liked the Fitchburg Finches out of Massachusetts. They discovered their schooling, though quite different systems, had gone much the same: both had few friends, but were mostly seen as loners. And they also loved wizard’s chess.

After their meal, they had stood on the sidewalk in Diagon Alley, eyeing each other, neither of them knowing what to do next, how to proceed onward. But something rested between them, something invisible and heady, a magnetic attraction that scared them both. 

As if trying to relieve her suddenly parched throat, Rey’s tongue snaked out to lick along her bottom lip. Ben’s eyes had darkened, reflecting the nighttime around them and something more dangerous… _desire_. He’d walked her home that night, though a completely moot action since both could Apparate. 

That was the first time Ben had shown her what he could do with his mouth.

For a week after, Rey couldn’t look Ben Solo in the eye, not when he’d had his dark head buried between her thighs, showing her the face of… well, some sort of deity. 

He was her responsibility while he was in England for the exchange, but for days she avoided him like Dragon Pox. 

Instead, she hid away in the Ministry Archives, searching for any information about what could be happening between them. Rey had to use what little she knew about Occlumency to keep her guard up, to keep Ben from feeling or knowing anything. 

After she posed a hypothetical question to the head archivist about psychic links and explosive first meetings, Armitage Hux looked down his nose at her like she was a blast-ended skrewt. 

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” he had told her. 

“Surely there must be something? Some sort of precedent?” Rey had pushed. 

“Let me have a look, and I’ll get back to you,” the ginger had assuaged. 

Two days later, she received an interdepartmental memo. It landed on her desk and unfolded itself. Two words were written on the parchment in a hasty scrawl.

_Ut Animo._

What the hell was that? That’s all the note said. Signed with a scripted ‘H.’

Couldn’t the wanker have provided _more_ information than that? 

Before Rey could reply with a strongly worded memo of her own, a large body sat itself in the empty chair next to her desk. Rey had known she could only hide for so long, but she’d hoped she could avoid Ben Solo a little longer. 

“Uh, how can I help you?” Rey asked, unable to look him in the intensity of his Firewhisky stare. 

“You’re avoiding me,” he stated, as if he spoke of the weather. 

“No I’m not,” Rey replied petulantly, shuffling some papers around on her desk, trying to seem busy. 

“You are. You know how I can tell?” 

Rey finally looked at him, and watched as he tapped a fingertip to his temple. 

“That’s how I can tell. You’re not great at Occlumency, Niima. You can’t hide everything from me,” Ben replied, before getting up and walking off. 

She couldn’t keep hiding from Ben anymore after that, having been caught and exposed, so she reluctantly continued acting as babysitter, going through the motions of routine dark arts scans throughout the London community and intelligence gathering. 

They didn’t fuck again, Rey had made sure of that. 

Well, technically, they hadn’t fucked in the first place, Ben Solo had gone down on her and she’d given him a sloppy hand job, and she awkwardly dismissed him afterward. 

Another memo arrived weeks later, again from Hux in Archives. This time he’d included a second page of parchment with beautifully written information.

* * *

Ut Animo: A Study In Love Magic

_By: Satine Kryze, Department of Mysteries_

_Much is still unknown of the ancient magic we have come to call_ Ut Animo _. Rough translation of the term is “Like Minds,” and from what we do know, it involves a deep psychic link, bridging the minds of two, for lack of better phrasing, soulmates._

Ut Animo _is the rarest kind of love magic, something that seems to transcend what we can parse of magic, in general. From my research, I have noticed that, at most, there is a couple in every generation that manifests_ Ut Animo _. We have been fortunate enough to track down one such couple: husbands Wilfred and Garth Baggins-Scrimgeour. The gentlemen were kind enough to submit to an interview, and I was able to glean the basic mechanics of what_ Ut Animo _can do. However, I do not think I will ever be able to answer why connections are triggered between two specific people or even how the magic works. This much I do know:_

 _-_ Ut Animo _means ‘like minds’, though the magic only works if both parties are mentally, psychically, emotionally, and physically compatible before they meet. Wilfred and Garth reported similar childhoods and similar likes and dislikes, which leads me to believe_ Ut Animo _could be predetermined before birth._

 _\- The_ Ut Animo _is triggered by the first skin-on-skin contact the pair has, a somewhat violent reaction that sends the couple reeling for hours afterward. Wilfred and Garth described the feeling as though they’d dropped in the wrong potion ingredient and the consequence was an explosion._

_\- The magic starts slow, as if acclimating the pair to their newly connected psyche. They are first able to feel bare whispers of the other’s emotions. Then, the bond between the couple grows stronger, until eventually they are able to read each other’s thoughts and communicate over a vast distance. Wilfred and Garth reported having been able to communicate through their bond when Garth visited family in Greece, while Wilfred was at home in Godric’s Hollow._

_\- The majority of_ Ut Animo _manifestations result in a love match, however there have been instances in the past where the relationship was platonic._

 _\- Perhaps most important to note, a couple that develops_ Ut Animo _magic are forever entwined until one passes from our realm and beyond the veil. In a prolonged physical absence, both parties experience a sense of fatigue, which worsens as time apart lengthens, until they are reunited and feel rejuvenated once more._

 _-_ Ut Animo _is the deepest type of love magic I have ever researched. It is wandless, and cannot be undone._

 _-_ Ut Animo _is on par with the sacrificial love magic seen between parents and their children._

* * *

Rey crumbled the piece of parchment into a ball, reared back her hand to pitch the thing into the rubbish bin… but froze. 

The idea of this-- this -- _Ut Animo_ \-- absolutely terrified her. She’d been alone her entire life, even in an orphanage full of other abandoned children, even in a thousand year old castle full of bright-eyed students, and especially in a vast facility such as the Ministry of Magic, teeming with the best witches and wizards the United Kingdom had to offer. Alone, as she most likely deserved. Punishment for some sin she had committed. She could not comprehend this preposterous idea of soulmates and magic mental bonds. Absolutely ludicrous. Unfathomable.

Yet she found herself lowering her fist, and tucking the crumpled parchment away in the top drawer of her desk. 

Rey felt hot tears threatening to spill forth. She batted her eyes furiously, trying to hold them at bay. 

She didn’t want to be connected to anyone. She liked being alone, had been alone for so long she didn’t know any other way. To have someone so intimately linked to her? It scared her to death. The vulnerability of it. Being exposed, like a raw nerve, to be trounced on. To be wrecked in the worst way possible. And Ben Solo would no doubt ruin her beyond repair… 

Her eyes slid shut of their own accord, as if compelled by an outside force, and suddenly Ben was there, but not physically. He’d taken the day off to do some sightseeing in Scotland, invited to visit Hogwarts by Headmaster Kenobi himself, an old friend of Ben’s family. Since arriving, Ben had expressed an interest in seeing how Hogwarts functioned differently or the same from his own Ilvermorny. 

But he was there, in her office with her. She could _feel_ him, could feel his concern as if it were her own, could feel the ghost of warmth of his hand on her face as if he sat in the chair by her desk.. 

_You’re not alone._

The words came as a whisper, echoing in the caverns of her mind. It all still scared her, but there was something almost familiar, the tone and weight of his words were somehow a comfort. 

_Neither are you_. She whispered back.

~*~

“Hey, where did you go just now?” 

Rey pulled herself from her reverie, pulling back from the hollow of Ben’s throat to stare up into the face of her beloved, her soulmate, the other half of her _Ut Animo_. 

“You know where I disappeared,” Rey teased softly, reaching up to run her fingers through the dark, silky hair at his temple. Ben’s eyes closed against the sensation, the corners of his lips twitching upward ever so slightly. 

“You were thinking too much,” he replied. “Thinking too much of the past, and not spending enough time with me in the present. I feel like I should be insulted.” 

Rey let out a burst of laughter. “Apologies for allowing my mind to wander, my love. It was rude, of course. Especially right in the middle of the first alone time we’ve had in two weeks.” 

Guilt pulled at Ben’s mouth and eyes, and Rey skated her hands forward to try and smooth the worry lines. 

“My fault. I should have never taken that assignment in Tahiti…” 

“It’s okay,” Rey reassured him, now cupping both of her hands around his face, taking care to ghost the pads of her thumbs along his cheek bones. “You weren’t gone long enough for either of us to feel the effects.” 

“Any longer and I would’ve gone insane being away from you,” Ben huffed a rueful laugh. “The disadvantages of our bond, huh?” 

Rey nodded, her smile wide and fond. “As if it wasn’t enough moving to America with you. Now you go and take assignments out of country. It’s like you don’t care about your wife’s well being at all.” 

Ben leveled the ghost of a hard stare, though she could see the playfulness behind it. “Your well being and my well being are the same. Were you not worried about mine?” 

“You know damn well I care,” Rey pinched Ben’s cheek, causing him to flinch away with a muttered ‘ow!’ Merlin, she loved to tease him.

“Yes, love,” Ben intoned, though she could feel his own gentle teasing like a breeze through their bond. 

“Will you stop talking now, and fuck me, Solo?” 

A bright, boyish grin erupted across Ben’s face then, revealing the dimples Rey couldn’t get enough of. 

“Yes, Mrs. Solo,” Ben replied gruffly. 

There wasn’t much build up or pretense. Neither of them could bear it, not after being apart for so long. Ben devoured her lips, and Rey gave as good as she got, their tongues curling around each other, their hands reaching everywhere to rid each other of clothing, and Ben’s gentle fingertips teasing between Rey’s thighs. It wasn’t long before Ben slid home, causing them both to cry out.

In unguarded and vulnerable moments like this, the mental shields they’d built, so as to not overwhelm each other, dropped of their own accord, fully bridging their minds in such a way that neither of them could tell where one began and the other ended. 

Ben still had the wherewithal to move, to roll his hips forward over and over again in a steady, loving pace. Rey clung to her husband, meeting him thrust for thrust. She always revelled in the ways Ben could make her feel. The love she’d never known before him, and the love she’ll never know after him (though she refuses to imagine any scenario without him). He had quickly become an expert at physically pleasuring her, and underneath the tough, bad ass veneer of an auror resided a damn romantic softy. 

Rey could feel the depth of Ben’s emotions often, the love she felt for him reflected back though different in subtle ways but no less powerful, especially locked in intimate moments like this, his pleasure mixing with her own to a mind numbing and toe curling effect. 

They always came together, cresting over the cliff and plunging into oblivion, their minds and bodies alight with the deepest kind of satiation. Rey had grown up in a muggle Catholic orphanage, with nuns endlessly trying to describe religious experiences. It amused her to think that this was as close to one as she’d ever get.

“Amortentia,” Rey whispered, some time after they’d come down from their high, wrapped in each other’s arms with Rey resting her head on Ben’s powerful chest. 

“Hmm?” He hummed, skating idle designs with his fingertips across her shoulder and back. 

“Amortentia,” Rey repeated. “Learned about it in sixth year. With the first inhale, I had smelled freshly laundered cotton, cedar, plums, and rain. I didn’t know why… until I met you. It’s how you smell, don’t know if you knew that. Imagine… my body and subconscious mind knew what I was attracted to well before _I_ knew.”

“Huh,” Ben mused. “Goes to show you just how connected we are and always have been.” Her husband pulled her closer, until nearly every point of skin touched. 

“Have you smelled Amortentia before?” Rey asked, propping her chin on his sternum, gazing up at him through hooded eyes. 

“I have,” Ben nodded, looking down his long nose, their gazes meeting. 

“And?” Rey prodded, realizing they’d never talked about this love potion before. Why bother? When they were the embodiment of the _Ut Animo_ magic, something far more deeper than a dangerous, superficial concoction.

Ben thought for a moment, then grinned widely, that same boyish grin that made Rey weak in the knees. Thank Merlin they were laying down…

“Lavender. Citrus. Maple. Sunshine. It’s how _you_ smell, don’t know if you knew that,” he replied cheekily. 


End file.
